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in the beginning was the scream you scream, "no!" 

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anarchist origin stories are always so beautiful 
to me because people come to anarchism from such  

3
00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:31,040
wildly different ways but i think they're also 
hard because like i've always been anarchistic  

4
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movement is my home i'm gonna go back to it 
in the ways that i can at the times that i can

5
00:00:51,520 --> 00:00:55,506
my anarchist origin story, right

6
00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:00,217
i can say like yeah i'm ashanti,

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i come from plainfield new jersey in 1954  and i came through the 60s of the black rebellion and stuff

8
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but then i also get to think about it from like how did i feel

9
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you know, why was it important for me to like 
get out there

10
00:01:18,888 --> 00:01:21,905
and it's something that i've talked about a lot

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if i, you know, get interviews and things like that

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but it's interesting how

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in between times how i think about a lot 
of it and in terms of new things that i've learned

14
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and how to look at it from different 
lenses and it reminded me of when i was in  

15
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chiapas mexico, you know, checking out 
the zapatistas and stuff

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and one of the well-known writers he began his essay on the zapatistas with, "in the beginning was the scream"  

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and it stuck with me because it would make 
me think like, you know,

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you can get into the intellectual stuff but, yeah man, you just get tired and angry

19
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and it's at that point where you scream, you scream, "no!"

20
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that's the beginning

21
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when i started really getting into anarchism

22
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it was like not so much to understand the different forms 
of organizations or the different theories in the canon

23
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you know, whether it was by bakunin and 
all these cats, but that, all of them moved

24
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from a place of frustration and anger that i associate with the scream

25
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and it's just when when i understood that

26
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and i started joining organizations

27
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it was black panther party that gave me a sense of

28
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we can fight back

29
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and black panther party was not an anarchist 
organization

30
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but some of the things that that we did within the black panther party, like locally,

31
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we worked together

32
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we worked collectively

33
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we studied together,  we studied collectively

34
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we reached out to people and it was always about empowering people

35
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so for me that was the beginnings of that anti-authoritarian experience

36
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that we can fight these authorities

37
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we can fight white supremacy

38
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we can fight the local capitalist structures 
and police departments

39
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but then later through prison i'm reading and 
i'm reading

40
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and some of my comrades were more anti-authoritarian rather than marxist,

41
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maoist

42
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and they would give me stuff and they started giving me a sense of anti-authoritarian

43
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from a psychological perspective

44
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like people seem to like

45
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they're not really embracing freedom they're like 
staying stuck in unfreedom

46
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with the like radical more feminist psychologies, too

47
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i started leaning away from the maoists, the marxists

48
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looking for things that gave me a better understanding how 
people could actually be in the collective and  

49
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avoid hierarchy that the thing with hierarchy kept 
coming up over and over

50
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it kept me reflecting on the split that happened in the black panther party

51
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came down to the two figures of huey p newton and eldridge cleaver

52
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but they they were more symbolic of what was going on in our chapters

53
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where huey newton and them and his leadership in oakland 
had so much power that our chapters were suffering  

54
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and we found out that they were doing quite well, you know  

55
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i kept reflecting on that in prison

56
00:05:22,876 --> 00:05:29,034
i mean in some ways what better place can you reflect,              
if you're there you're there

57
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but it gives you a time to like why you're here, what happened

58
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and if you're still committed to this revolution

59
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then you like you got to make this thing work

60
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i started having questions, you know,

61
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why are we like drifting towards this kind of leadership

62
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that requires  such a loyalty such a devotion that you just have to follow  

63
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during a certain part in prison, i looked at the 
anarchist stuff

64
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and i'm like, "okay it sounds good, and it's really idealistic, i don't think that it can really happen."  

65
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then you start reading about the spanish civil war

66
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and bakunin traveling from one country to another

67
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and wilhelm reich

68
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his writings really inspired me a lot

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to see anarchism as not only an organizing tool

70
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but as a way to like find that life within your body and stop allowing

71
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the authoritarian ideologies

72
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whether it's coming from the church

73
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or whatever the political parties are

74
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that gets you to believe that your body 
and that life within you is not your own  

75
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i'm like wow this is not only black power we can 
take over the institutions of our communities  

76
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but this is also ways that we can 
like take over the very life within us  

77
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that's been like we've been shut off from 
because we've accepted certain beliefs  

78
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and so the next i think maybe five years it's 
all i'm reading

79
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at the same time that i see that i'm changing my relationships with even my comrades inside

80
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and with other prisoners– where i'm not just talking about 
you know that political economic analysis  

81
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you know, now i'm talking about, well, "how you doing?" 
you know?

82
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and we can talk about our relationships with each other inside and with those outside 

83
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and it was interesting that my understanding  

84
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of sexism in there allowed me to have really human 
conversations with my comrades and other prisoners  

85
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and it made for such a deeper relationship

86
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so i think by the time i got out 80, end of 85, beginning of 86

87
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 i wanted to just look for the anarchists  

88
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but it's so funny that when you see the anarchist pictures  

89
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and i've said this in other places, you see these 
white folks where they're looking kind of weird  

90
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and like, the guys got these spiked hairs going 
on, like, "yo, i don't know if i can deal with that" 

91
00:08:32,880 --> 00:08:36,821
but i wanted to know, and i'm in new york city

92
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so at the time there's love and rage

93
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and, and at some point i just said well i'm 
gonna go check them out i know where they are  

94
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you know, and sure enough some look like 
that, but then, it was it but it wasn't  

95
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all just white folks there was folks of 
color in there too and i would attend some  

96
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of the meetings and see some of the things 
they're doing

97
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and they was really trying to 

98
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i think they were trying to do some 
groundbreaking anarchist work

99
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that was different from maybe traditional anarchist 
stuff like just working class related

100
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and you know, all that stuff and it really wasn't much 
of an anti-racism analysis, you know  

101
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and love & rage was really trying to do that

102
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i was hanging out with them more

103
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and i didn't join

104
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but i didn't want to get away from if it's going 
to work for me it's got to work in my community  

105
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but the fact is that they're willing to help,  
you know,

106
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and so, i think by that time, i just like i wasn't beating around with trying to like not say i'm an anarchist

107
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at this point, i'm like, "no, i'm an anarchist. deal with it!"

108
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we had what we call the black panther collective

109
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and these were these young people, in the community, who wanted to do something like what the panthers were doing  in the community

110
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and so some of us from the panther party, you know, we got together

111
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it was my opportunity to work my understandings of anarchism  
with a group of young folks in the community

112
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and with all the internal struggles that that brought

113
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i mean you had all the debates and everything,  
but okay, that's how it's supposed to go

114
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ain't nothing going smooth

115
00:10:28,482 --> 00:10:35,429
so that was like at least by the late 80s early 90s

116
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i've been here ever since by the time we had the first apoc 
anarchist people of colour conference in detroit and everything

117
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just felt like, you know, we're here, you know

118
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 and i felt good being a part of that

119
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there is not really one moment, or one thing, and so 
when i look back at what looks like it might be  

120
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the moment or some of the moments i always see the 
before

121
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i was born within the canadian state lived in a variety of locations within and outside of the industrialized western world

122
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so i saw a number of things that influenced me politically

123
00:11:17,176 --> 00:11:26,813
i saw both sides of my family's historical roots in in suriname, in south america, primarily afro-caribbean family roots

124
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got to know relatives who were like one generation out from slavery

125
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my family on my dad's side in england, who were one generation out from having experienced world war II,

126
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and where world war II was written on the landscape there

127
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and in the netherlands where some of my mother's family were much more so than

128
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people of my generation and growing up in north 
america would have seen

129
00:11:47,631 --> 00:11:53,038
so i have that sort of generational connection to the lived experience of war

130
00:11:53,038 --> 00:11:55,917
and then, experienced coming back to canada

131
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with my family, with my parents being immigrants 
although myself my brothers were technically not  

132
00:12:03,040 --> 00:12:07,582
so i have that racialized immigrant experience as well

133
00:12:07,582 --> 00:12:15,074
and so all of those things informed me in what then was like my journey to explicit politicization

134
00:12:15,074 --> 00:12:19,571
i was born in 1975 so as a teen i saw the end of the cold war

135
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:25,340
which, you know, had informed my experience of childhood

136
00:12:26,176 --> 00:12:32,014
i saw what's known in sort of official canadian state 
history as the oka crisis

137
00:12:32,014 --> 00:12:37,629
where the kanien'kehá:ka people known as the mohawk people stood up and defended their land in 1990

138
00:12:37,629 --> 00:12:41,919
and where from my own experience that was a 
turning point in the narrative of  

139
00:12:41,919 --> 00:12:50,080
canada as a benevolent state where the army was 
out against the people, the first people,  

140
00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:56,000
you know, the indigenous people, and that really 
gave light to canada being sort of a you know  

141
00:12:56,000 --> 00:13:00,851
benevolent quote-unquote civilized kind of country 
for myself for someone having previously lived  

142
00:13:00,851 --> 00:13:05,411
under military dictatorship like those signals 
were very very clear as to what that stood for

143
00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:13,562
and that happened right on the eve of 
the so-called first gulf war

144
00:13:13,562 --> 00:13:16,373
the 1991 invasion of iraq

145
00:13:16,373 --> 00:13:22,643
where i have no personal connection to iraq, but for a number of reasons, that felt close

146
00:13:22,643 --> 00:13:27,297
that felt like another clear giving lie to the narrative that we're told

147
00:13:27,297 --> 00:13:32,678
so that's happening you know as i'm a teen 
as i'm sort of thinking about who i am as a person in the world

148
00:13:32,678 --> 00:13:36,016
as a racialized woman starting to come out as queer

149
00:13:36,016 --> 00:13:43,063
and then, have a maybe a common middle class experience of 
further politicizing in youth culture

150
00:13:43,294 --> 00:13:44,388
briefly in a punk scene

151
00:13:44,751 --> 00:13:46,369
and then going off to university

152
00:13:46,369 --> 00:13:51,258
so in the university campus is where i then found queer community

153
00:13:51,555 --> 00:13:57,102
where i found politicized community 
and began to organize with a few of my  

154
00:13:57,102 --> 00:13:59,411
more theoretically rooted feminist friends and allies

155
00:14:00,069 --> 00:14:06,018
critiquing that hierarchy, critiquing the party, critiquing that information

156
00:14:06,018 --> 00:14:12,160
and those critiques really ringing true with my own lived experience of what's right, what's just, what's sustainable

157
00:14:12,952 --> 00:14:19,992
what feels like, you know, my own family traditions, my own, you know, just ways of interacting with people  

158
00:14:20,858 --> 00:14:26,298
and what worked, right, like what i saw, you know, 
in student organizing and queer and feminist organizing 

159
00:14:27,874 --> 00:14:34,354
as being effective sustainable modes 
of organizing that would win us the things that  

160
00:14:34,354 --> 00:14:38,320
we were trying to win in campaigns that i was 
involved around 

161
00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:40,292
so very few people in those  spaces identified as anarchists

162
00:14:40,292 --> 00:14:50,542
and i moved to kanien'kehá:ka territory, where I live now, known on colonial maps as montreal, canada about a little over 20 years ago now  

163
00:14:50,542 --> 00:14:53,708
in quebec, a lot more people identify as anarchists

164
00:14:53,708 --> 00:14:58,357
it's a space where there is a tradition of anarchist organizing

165
00:14:58,357 --> 00:15:04,922
so that's really where i found myself 
starting to be drawn to organizations that had  

166
00:15:04,922 --> 00:15:06,856
anarchists in their title

167
00:15:06,856 --> 00:15:13,913
so i've never really identified as a, you know, circle all the As type of anarchist necessarily

168
00:15:13,913 --> 00:15:19,570
but definitely found things that i relate to,
things that i find useful, uh, really grounding

169
00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:25,840
principles in anarchism and in other forms 
of horizontal anti-authoritarian organizing

170
00:15:28,080 --> 00:15:34,480
i am called a terrorist by the court and press 
but i am not a terrorist i am a person who feels  

171
00:15:34,480 --> 00:15:39,840
a moral obligation to do all that is humanly 
possible to prevent the destruction of the earth  

172
00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:45,413
i believe if there's any hope for the future 
it lies in our struggle   

173
00:15:45,413 --> 00:15:55,817
well i guess my activist origin story starts back in the 
early 80s when i was i guess in my early 20s  

174
00:15:56,080 --> 00:16:02,415
the anarchists were active in vancouver bc where i 
traveled from ontario, where i live now   

175
00:16:02,415 --> 00:16:07,184
and i met a group of anarchists in vancouver

176
00:16:07,184 --> 00:16:13,274
like at that time in history, there was a lot of urban gorilla groups all over like in europe and north america 

177
00:16:13,274 --> 00:16:21,409
whereas previously they had been more or less active, you know, like liberation movements in africa and south america 

178
00:16:21,750 --> 00:16:29,663
at the time too the  american indian movement was not at its peak but there were people from the american indian movement

179
00:16:29,663 --> 00:16:36,720
that were staying in vancouver because  
dino butler and gary butler, two guys who've been  

180
00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:43,660
involved in with leonard peltier, were had been in 
a shootout in vancouver with the cops 

181
00:16:43,660 --> 00:16:49,549
and so they were in prison and their support people were 
staying, i was really sort of fortunate in that respect 

182
00:16:49,747 --> 00:16:54,293
in the house where i was living, it was 
like a collective women's house  

183
00:16:54,293 --> 00:17:00,501
and so, the women who were there in vancouver to support these aim activists, were staying in our house  

184
00:17:00,798 --> 00:17:05,918
we were really introduced to the, you know, the way of thinking 
of the of the american indian movement people  

185
00:17:06,644 --> 00:17:11,320
but their general philosophy towards everything– it influenced us

186
00:17:11,320 --> 00:17:17,467
of course, they were very militant so that also influenced us as well

187
00:17:17,467 --> 00:17:22,298
 like the need to go beyond the legal framework of the government

188
00:17:24,125 --> 00:17:26,254
john trudell was staying in our house 

189
00:17:26,254 --> 00:17:30,260
he was of extreme... like a super powerful speaker, 
and an incredible person 

190
00:17:32,240 --> 00:17:35,622
and he had a bit of an entourage that was staying at 
the house too

191
00:17:35,622 --> 00:17:39,437
it's hard to pinpoint exactly how they influenced us

192
00:17:39,437 --> 00:17:44,852
but we were like... we were very 
young, and we were like awestruck  

193
00:17:44,852 --> 00:17:46,143
you know, when i think about it.

194
00:17:46,440 --> 00:17:54,544
we listened to them, just totally with 
our mouths open, and absorbing every little thing

195
00:17:54,544 --> 00:17:59,369
and as well we were doing work around 
some of the big mega projects 

196
00:17:59,369 --> 00:18:04,569
that were started in bc, and there was a lot of 
local indigenous people who were also,  

197
00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:09,063
or you know, who we were supporting and working 
with to some degree

198
00:18:09,063 --> 00:18:14,209
so that would be my first exposure to anarchists at that time

199
00:18:14,209 --> 00:18:18,070
before that, and even during that time period,

200
00:18:18,070 --> 00:18:25,680
the actual marxist leninist community was the 
dominant community in both toronto and vancouver  

201
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:26,884
it was kind of interesting

202
00:18:26,884 --> 00:18:34,779
i started off with the marxist-leninist when i was about 18. that was my first exposure to political activism

203
00:18:34,779 --> 00:18:37,615
and i was completely, like "wow, this is great"

204
00:18:37,615 --> 00:18:45,563
 but very soon i became disillusioned with... like, they were very 
doctrinaire, very ideologically driven  

205
00:18:45,563 --> 00:18:51,896
really dissolved, like in any of those cities 
there were so many splinter groups  

206
00:18:51,896 --> 00:18:58,696
so but anarchism was beginning to get a foothold 
in i think major cities in north america 

207
00:18:58,696 --> 00:19:01,508
and were already have very strong movements in europe

208
00:19:01,508 --> 00:19:07,030
and i'd also spent some time before i went to vancouver in france, in paris

209
00:19:07,030 --> 00:19:11,991
and i had been exposed to the autonomous when i was there as well

210
00:19:13,417 --> 00:19:19,240
the punk scene was really vibrant too at that time 
and they all identified as anarchists  

211
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:26,080
julie belmas and gerry hannah were part of our direct action 
group, our little urban gorilla group back in those days

212
00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:34,720
and gerry hannah was a member of the subhumans, which at the time, was a very well known punk band in vancouver

213
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:39,596
so yeah, we're very much part of that punk community as well

214
00:19:39,596 --> 00:19:46,080
you know we'd been hanging out with jerry and julie for 
like a couple of years before we went underground

215
00:19:47,368 --> 00:19:52,560
the attacks on expensive shops and cars 
bore the hallmarks of what one of the groups  

216
00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:55,907
class war has called its bash the rich campaign

217
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:06,000
yeah i am getting the bit on, but i think uh as 
long as, I'll tell you what, class was very good for your health

218
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:09,566
because if you're out there fighting 
away with a bit of combativity left  

219
00:20:09,566 --> 00:20:13,924
and you live to fight to really you live to be a really old 
age with a great deal of happiness and joy in your heart  

220
00:20:13,924 --> 00:20:19,520
and there's nothing that make me happy 
on my 89th birthday is to see buckingham palace in flames 

221
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:23,491
while the rest of the aristocracy doing 
a dance of death on the battlements  

222
00:20:23,491 --> 00:20:26,575
that really cheer me up as i pop down to collect my pension

223
00:20:27,167 --> 00:20:30,883
when i was about 14 i sort of believed in chaos

224
00:20:31,091 --> 00:20:33,499
i didn't know there was a word for it like anarchy

225
00:20:33,499 --> 00:20:35,651
so in the dictionary one day i found the word anarchy

226
00:20:35,651 --> 00:20:39,023
i thought, "well, that's what i am." i called myself an 
"anarchyist"

227
00:20:39,023 --> 00:20:42,794
i didn't realize there were other people out there called anarchists

228
00:20:42,794 --> 00:20:46,991
 then by sheer chance about two years later i was waiting at a dentist waiting room 

229
00:20:46,991 --> 00:20:50,437
 and i picked a copy of punch magazine which you know fashion satirical kind of magazine

230
00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:54,078
it had the piss taken out on an article about freedom press

231
00:20:54,078 --> 00:20:58,202
dangerous anarchists in bars with beards and cloaks and all that

232
00:20:58,202 --> 00:21:01,433
but it gave the address of freedoms

233
00:21:01,433 --> 00:21:05,893
i was sending out to the freedom said, "i wish to be an anarchist, can you send me further details."

234
00:21:05,893 --> 00:21:13,743
seeing as efficient as anarchists usually are, i got a reply about six months later, enclosed a copy of freedom and that then they also had a couple of demonstrations

235
00:21:13,743 --> 00:21:16,640
which one could come out too, so i was bold and went out to them

236
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,584
plus then i was about 17 or 18 went to college

237
00:21:20,584 --> 00:21:23,360
time of 67 and the vietnam war opposition

238
00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:29,093
1967 i was a peace and love hippie absolutely and 
pacifist

239
00:21:29,093 --> 00:21:31,834
and a complete change overnight from 67 to 60

240
00:21:31,834 --> 00:21:40,070
by march 68 i was a full-on revolutionary anarchist, smash the state, vietnam war, violent demonstrations in london, grosvenor square

241
00:21:40,070 --> 00:21:45,745
the hippie beads had gone and i've never looked back from that nothing else has ever appealed to me

242
00:21:45,745 --> 00:21:52,249
there's always a very strong sense of class consciousness to it but i wasn't an anarchist in terms of i don't know anyone who's  

243
00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:56,125
an just anarchist you have to be sort of class struggle 
anarchist

244
00:21:56,125 --> 00:22:03,097
in my background and my parents being servants meant that um i had a very good hatred of the ruling class and what i saw on a daily basis  

245
00:22:03,546 --> 00:22:09,600
the people who employed my mom and dad would call 
him by their surname uh and my dad would have  

246
00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:11,334
to call him master so and so

247
00:22:11,334 --> 00:22:16,480
so simmered mr bones here, simmered in his tiny cottage  on the estate

248
00:22:16,480 --> 00:22:18,585
i had visions of burning the whole lot down

249
00:22:18,585 --> 00:22:21,626
it was very much from the gut

250
00:22:21,626 --> 00:22:23,797
well '81 there'd be riots all over the uk

251
00:22:23,797 --> 00:22:28,434
i mean good riots, big riots, which a lot of us have been involved in

252
00:22:28,434 --> 00:22:30,951
but no one was speaking to the rioter afterwards

253
00:22:30,951 --> 00:22:36,946
other people had colonised those actions,  if you know the left, all those people want those jobs and better facilities

254
00:22:36,946 --> 00:22:38,800
fuck your jobs, you know,

255
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:44,143
so when the riot was over, quite rightly, most rioters wanted to keep their heads down and get out of the way

256
00:22:44,143 --> 00:22:45,797
there's no one actually going to take on the politics of it

257
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,866
so okay we'll bring a paper out which appeals 
to the street rioters

258
00:22:49,866 --> 00:22:52,075
it was unapologetic so it was fuckin' great wasn't it

259
00:22:52,075 --> 00:22:54,419
and you're careful the language with the language you use

260
00:22:54,419 --> 00:22:56,912
we skated just this side of incitement

261
00:22:56,912 --> 00:23:01,917
so we write about something, say the brixton right after it happened so this was fuckin' great

262
00:23:01,917 --> 00:23:08,597
it was not incitement but if you said, "get out and riot with me," it would be. so we're very careful on that, but you aimed at the rioters

263
00:23:08,597 --> 00:23:14,220
and then we were lucky really because '85 minors' strike was a huge effect on this country

264
00:23:14,220 --> 00:23:17,138
thatcher, loads of trade unions, it was a great time to be here 

265
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:22,948
our politics was really really popular and so 
to all sorts of different people outside the anarchist milieu 

266
00:23:22,948 --> 00:23:30,118
i think 85 is the time we came nearest to have a significant revolutionary  effect

267
00:23:30,118 --> 00:23:35,370
a lot of people were influenced by class war
class war was quite good, it sold papers,

268
00:23:35,370 --> 00:23:38,434
through the sort of punk gigs and all that 
all over the country

269
00:23:38,434 --> 00:23:43,218
part of the strike was in the summer, the miners would take their shirts off and stick a copy of glass wall in their chest

270
00:23:43,218 --> 00:23:48,954
and so, we made big inroads with other strikes as well–
print workers, steel workers, dockers, and all that

271
00:23:49,284 --> 00:23:50,736
we never tried to recruit people

272
00:23:50,736 --> 00:23:54,136
we were quite happy to have you join this strike, and come back whenever

273
00:23:54,136 --> 00:23:56,620
but we weren't sort of signing people up like the trotskys

274
00:23:56,620 --> 00:24:00,504
people were very surprised that class war was not this vast organization

275
00:24:00,669 --> 00:24:04,181
a little anecdote: a newcomer come to a class war meeting

276
00:24:04,181 --> 00:24:04,978
at the end of the meeting,

277
00:24:04,978 --> 00:24:10,000
he said, "i enjoyed the meeting very much," and he thought he'd go to his local branch next time

278
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:15,285
we said, "local branch?  we don't have local branches, this is it. this is all of class war."

279
00:24:15,285 --> 00:24:15,889
he said, "what in london?"

280
00:24:15,889 --> 00:24:17,468
no, all over the country. there's twelve of us, like

281
00:24:17,468 --> 00:24:21,412
when the poll tax right in 1992

282
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,043
which basically brought thatcher down

283
00:24:24,043 --> 00:24:27,565
which classroom played a very significant part

284
00:24:27,565 --> 00:24:33,249
before that, the labour party said, "rioting in the streets will never get rid of thatcher"

285
00:24:33,249 --> 00:24:34,542
well, have a look at this mate

286
00:24:34,789 --> 00:24:37,810
we were insurrectionists in that sense of the term

287
00:24:37,810 --> 00:24:40,000
we said we should be spontaneous

288
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:41,417
we'd hold territory overnight

289
00:24:41,417 --> 00:24:47,472
then we'd have territory, no-go areas, and we didn't need to be any more sophisticated than that

290
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:52,694
i was a late bloomer in the anarchy world

291
00:24:52,694 --> 00:24:54,623
i was almost 30 years old

292
00:24:54,623 --> 00:24:56,642
it was in atlanta georgia 

293
00:24:56,642 --> 00:25:01,433
and 9/11 had just happened like i remember that 
day, that morning

294
00:25:01,631 --> 00:25:09,084
and myself thinking that the united states was about to go to war 

295
00:25:09,275 --> 00:25:13,128
and that prospect made me angry and scared me

296
00:25:13,128 --> 00:25:16,301
also other things scared me about the post-911 world

297
00:25:16,301 --> 00:25:18,368
 george bush was in power 

298
00:25:18,368 --> 00:25:23,436
john ashcroft was attorney general, he was a real piece of shit, real authoritarian

299
00:25:23,436 --> 00:25:30,472
and just a few years earlier, clinton had passed an anti-terror law that basically ate up a bunch of the civil liberties that were left  

300
00:25:30,472 --> 00:25:36,122
in the united states and that was because of a 
terrorist act that was done by white people  

301
00:25:36,122 --> 00:25:38,088
it was the oklahoma city bombing

302
00:25:38,088 --> 00:25:45,396
and i figured, if this is pinned on on arabs or muslims, this is gonna go away out of fuckin' control

303
00:25:45,396 --> 00:25:49,520
and you know i was always sort of touching the political...

304
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:56,236
uh, radical political scene, just because i was in 
the art scene and in the music scene in atlanta at the time 

305
00:25:56,236 --> 00:26:01,382
then, i joined the anti-war movement 
that was uh kicking off right after 9/11.  

306
00:26:01,382 --> 00:26:04,817
it was a very small and unpopular anti-war movement

307
00:26:04,817 --> 00:26:06,636
i was already making films 

308
00:26:06,636 --> 00:26:14,533
so i decided to document and help, like, popularize this 
this tiny movement that was happening in atlanta

309
00:26:14,533 --> 00:26:20,155
and through that i joined indymedia and there i met some fuckin' anarchists  

310
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,800
and uh, i became really good friends with two of 
them, they were also very new to it  

311
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,361
but they were they probably had a couple of years 
on me

312
00:26:29,361 --> 00:26:36,934
they took a lot of time and and with a lot of patience talked to me about a bunch of things

313
00:26:36,934 --> 00:26:40,550
mainly sort of destroying my ideas about pacifism

314
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:49,799
they gave me a book by crimethinc "days of war 
nights of love,"

315
00:26:49,799 --> 00:26:54,512
that book really changed me not so much in the fact that, i mean i was already on board when i read the book

316
00:26:54,512 --> 00:27:02,720
but i just sucked up the the aesthetics of how they were 
presenting the information was accessible  

317
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:08,877
and i felt that a lot of the zines and the 
other materials that i was presented before  

318
00:27:08,877 --> 00:27:12,225
while i devoured them and digested them

319
00:27:12,225 --> 00:27:15,917
i felt that they might not reach audiences

320
00:27:15,917 --> 00:27:21,249
outside of the people who might already be down 
or people who might be down with that aesthetic  

321
00:27:22,070 --> 00:27:27,392
and so i thought well holy shit, why don't we 
take this aesthetic and make films you know like  

322
00:27:27,392 --> 00:27:32,459
let's make some real anarchist films 
that are well produced

323
00:27:32,459 --> 00:27:35,065
that you know could maybe reach some other people 

324
00:27:35,065 --> 00:27:36,775
and that was it

325
00:27:36,775 --> 00:27:41,232
so when i was coming up with the concept for submedia's anarchist news video show

326
00:27:41,232 --> 00:27:43,840
"it's the end of the world as we know it and i feel fine"

327
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,865
i really wanted something different than the 
sort of brian williams type news anchor 

328
00:27:48,865 --> 00:27:52,757
and then when i found stim, and he said that he would 
do it for tacos,

329
00:27:52,757 --> 00:27:58,707
i thought well maybe this whole weird floating eyes thing this guy's got going on, that shit might just work

330
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:09,040
i'm just gonna make anarchist 
films and this is gonna be  

331
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:15,840
my contribution to the struggle and uh yeah 
this is this is my life there's no turning back

332
00:28:19,482 --> 00:28:22,209
it's not enough just to kind of like say 
what we don't want but we always have to be  

333
00:28:22,209 --> 00:28:24,606
building what we do want

334
00:28:24,606 --> 00:28:28,753
looking backwards i feel like i've always been anarchistic

335
00:28:28,753 --> 00:28:31,668
you know all the accidents of our own lives

336
00:28:31,668 --> 00:28:37,115
 you know i was had to be my parents parent from almost when i was born  

337
00:28:37,115 --> 00:28:39,727
so i think i always had this thing of you know 
trying to figure out like,

338
00:28:39,727 --> 00:28:45,111
okay if we have to figure out how to like hold other people in caring ways and take care of them

339
00:28:45,309 --> 00:28:46,975
how do we do that

340
00:28:46,975 --> 00:28:49,747
they also just deeply believed in and trusted me

341
00:28:49,747 --> 00:28:52,240
and felt like sort of transparent communication

342
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:56,639
and letting me self-determine was really 
important

343
00:28:56,639 --> 00:29:00,000
i think judaism has been a really big influence on my anarchism

344
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:04,080
and for me that was a sense that we need to always spend

345
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:09,218
our lives trying to be various better versions 
of good people

346
00:29:09,218 --> 00:29:13,222
and the only way you can be a good person is by also trying to do good in the world

347
00:29:13,222 --> 00:29:15,898
and that that happens in the here and now wherever we are

348
00:29:15,898 --> 00:29:22,911
so before i became an anarchist i spent a lot of time doing that conundrum of like really wanting to create

349
00:29:22,911 --> 00:29:30,765
these deeply inclusive and participatory and egalitarian spaces that weren't the spaces that i saw in society

350
00:29:30,765 --> 00:29:34,320
which by and large you know i felt like a misfit in

351
00:29:35,378 --> 00:29:37,800
murray bookchin was living in burlington, vermont

352
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:40,454
and there was a whole bunch of people who had studied,

353
00:29:40,454 --> 00:29:42,624
doing a whole bunch of study groups 
with him and around him

354
00:29:42,624 --> 00:29:48,300
and nearby burlington, about 45 minutes away, was the institute for social ecology

355
00:29:48,300 --> 00:29:51,705
which for almost 30 years did a month-long anarchist summer school

356
00:29:51,705 --> 00:29:53,789
i met anarchists here and there,

357
00:29:53,789 --> 00:29:58,693
but i think the anarchists that really made me understand myself as an anarchist were the ones that invited me

358
00:29:58,693 --> 00:30:02,082
to come to the anarchist summer school then they introduced me to murray

359
00:30:02,082 --> 00:30:07,017
and he's like within five minutes he's like, "where do you live" and i was like "burlington"

360
00:30:07,017 --> 00:30:11,712
he goes "you must come to a study group in my house" and so you know i started studying with him

361
00:30:11,712 --> 00:30:14,388
and these other anarchists and organizing with them

362
00:30:14,388 --> 00:30:16,863
so long story short is i think, you know,

363
00:30:16,863 --> 00:30:25,284
for me becoming an anarchist was like a lot of people just experiencing the generosity and mutual aid and reciprocity

364
00:30:25,284 --> 00:30:28,471
and gifting of what they found beautiful in anarchism

365
00:30:28,471 --> 00:30:31,200
and i guess i came into it through the lens of um

366
00:30:31,886 --> 00:30:34,388
the murray bookchin circles

367
00:30:34,388 --> 00:30:36,278
it wasn't just murray but he, you know,

368
00:30:36,278 --> 00:30:41,595
i really felt comfortable with him too as a jewish anarchist and ways of speaking

369
00:30:41,595 --> 00:30:48,081
i love wrestling with ideas and always rethinking and pushing myself and being dynamic

370
00:30:48,081 --> 00:30:51,571
and murray at his best that was exactly what he did

371
00:30:51,571 --> 00:30:56,150
a person who looked at the big picture who was also 
super open and generous never got paid

372
00:30:56,150 --> 00:31:00,944
for him you know trying to you know mentor multiple 
generations of anarchists into anarchism

373
00:31:00,944 --> 00:31:06,621
and you know i really take after that i i don't think we recruit people but i think we need to be there for each other

374
00:31:06,621 --> 00:31:08,177
and mentor each other

375
00:31:08,177 --> 00:31:13,151
and i came into anarchism understanding that we have to have a critical vision of what's missing

376
00:31:13,151 --> 00:31:19,213
but also a beautiful pre-figurative vision of what we want in its place

377
00:31:19,213 --> 00:31:22,413
but you know for 2500 years or so until the state of israel

378
00:31:22,413 --> 00:31:23,930
which to my mind was a mistake

379
00:31:23,930 --> 00:31:30,934
jews, and to this day, you know,  jews were diasporic and you know murray comes from a diaspora tradition

380
00:31:30,934 --> 00:31:34,116
a lot of anarchists and other radicals come through diasporic traditions

381
00:31:34,116 --> 00:31:39,401
and how do you make community in the here and now 
or beyond borders, across borders,

382
00:31:39,401 --> 00:31:42,766
and do it now because this is the only time we have

383
00:31:42,766 --> 00:31:46,375
i got really involved in that anarchist summer school for the last 10 years of its life

384
00:31:46,375 --> 00:31:51,955
and it coincided as it was that was sort of starting to die the alter globalization movement rose up

385
00:31:51,955 --> 00:31:56,267
and a lot of folks would spend a month together studying and then learning and mentoring

386
00:31:56,267 --> 00:31:59,057
and having fun and playing because it was like a camp 

387
00:31:59,057 --> 00:32:01,710
and then a bunch of them for instance went to seattle

388
00:32:01,710 --> 00:32:10,707
it was this profound time when a profound critique of the way capitalism was affecting the entire globe came to the fore

389
00:32:10,707 --> 00:32:12,931
and anarchists were prominent

390
00:32:12,931 --> 00:32:20,000
and a profound shift to where anarchistic 
types of organizing were the dominant  

391
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:27,066
but not coercive forms of organizing 
when you came into any space pretty much  

392
00:32:27,066 --> 00:32:31,237
the brilliance of the imagination that was 
developed around the ultra globalization movement  

393
00:32:31,237 --> 00:32:36,214
and the space it opened up for anarchists and 
anarchism and people to come to it   

394
00:32:36,214 --> 00:32:42,032
and yeah again, and again, and again during that time period i kept hearing people describe coming to anarchism as   

395
00:32:42,032 --> 00:32:44,395
"i feel like a light bulb's gone off,"

396
00:32:44,395 --> 00:32:47,796
and i just think i've heard like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people say that

397
00:32:47,796 --> 00:32:52,146
because i'm a person that i'll go to a mass mobilization what i'll do is i'll talk to as many people as i can to get to know them

398
00:32:52,146 --> 00:32:53,563
and vice versa